where all things lead
by MonikaFilefan
Summary: Missing scenes from the episode "all things" and how their future momentous moments are effected by it.


—

_**2000**_

_Glug glug glug_

Soft gurgling from the fish tank trickles into her mind and rouses her from her dream, her vision. No, her memories. Her signs along the way to pay attention to...

_Mulder's tentative hand in hers the first moment she set eyes on him; his warm hand resting at her back day after day; his shaking fingers lacing through her cancer-riddled, lifeless ones; his thumb playing war with hers, squeezing her IV laden hand in New York; his tender ones cupping her face and calling her his constant and touchstone… _

Worrying Mulder's Aztec between her fingers, she swallows, feeling her chest constrict at the brief thought that this path they've traveled together could not have happened if she hadn't fled from a potential life with Daniel.

Daniel: the man she'd once been enamored by and considered spending her life with, even though she never truly loved him. Not the way she loves Mulder. She has made the right choice. The only choice. All the other ones were wrong, because they would not have lead to Fox Mulder.

_This choice is right, _she thinks as she stands and pads into his room. _Mulder is right_. _The timing is finally right. _

It's after midnight now. A new day, a new path.

Mulder is laying sprawled out on the side of the bed he usually passes out on in their one star motel rooms. One long leg dangling off the edge, while he hugs himself in his sleep. He looks lonely. She feels a pang in her chest at the distinction that this might be how he always feels without her.

She crosses the threshold and removes her jacket, placing at the foot of his bed, and leans in close to watch her best friends handsome face bathing moonlight. He's shirtless and bronzed chest rises and falls with each breath, stretching his well-defined abdomen. Her eyes skim down to his waist, his tapered hips, his prominent bulge resting along the crease of his thigh…

"Hey," he rumbles, voice thick with sleep.

Exhaling, relieved at the welcoming gleam in his eyes, she smiles. "Hey."

His long, slender feet swing to the floor as he moves to the edge of the bed, staring up at her with a hundred questions seeping through their bond.

"You avoided the squeaky floorboard."

Through the dim of the night, their eyes never stop dancing and her heart thuds vigorously against her ribcage.

She shrugs. "What kind of partner would I be if I didn't know your nooks and crannies?"

Chuckling, he knuckle taps her hip and says, "still more than I could ever ask for."

She bites her lip, a flicker of nervousness mingles with her confidence. His fingers braid within hers, as if he knows what she needs, and all is right in her world again.

"I thought you'd wake and go home like you always do."

Emboldened with her decision, she licks her lips and verbally answers the only way she can. "Not this time."

The raw emotion displayed so openly on his shadowy face for her to see spurs her on, reminding her what seven long years of wondering and waiting has done to them both.

The cool darkness of the room is a stark juxtaposition to the white hot fire heating her insides. Blinking through their gaze, determined and fully ready to physically consummate this unexplainable thing between them, she hikes up skirt and peels off her nude nylons one leg at a time. Her green sweater is next as she crosses her arms and yanks it over her head, tossing it carelessly to the floor.

"Allow me?" Mulder husks tentatively, gently covering her hands gripping the side zipper with his. Whether he truly understands this is the night they've been waiting years for yet or not and never expecting more than she's willing to give, he still bravely offers to undress her down to full transparency.

He wants this just as badly as she does if the massive erection tenting his pants wasn't her first clue. She feels herself blush knowing _that_ will be in her soon. That Mulder will be making feel so good, so complete.

The skirt, then the bra falls to the floor with a thump, and she is now fully exposed. She smiles as her partner's expression contorts with praise and arousal at every arc and curvaceous detail of her nudity.

Their hands entwine in the air and she steps closer, leaning down to touch her lips to his.

"I've been waiting," he murmurs against her bottom lip, her cheek, trailing feathery kisses along her jaw. "I hoped..."

"I knew," she finishes without thought, because she had. She's known for years. She just needed the extra push, the proverbial shove over their ever evaporating platonic line.

"Wow, Scully." He slides his palms up the back of her thighs, pulling her between his legs and she looks down at him, awed at what she sees whirling in his golden depths: reverence. Reverent on her feel and her scent.

More images of where they've been and how they've changed on this path of endless forks of angst and love rush through her mind in technicolor.

_Cut the crap, Mulder..._

_I wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone but you..._

_So intense sometimes that it's blinding..._

_I feel you close, and I need to know you're out there if I'm ever to see through this..._

_Personal interest is all that have..._

_And you are mine..._

"Tell me, Mulder. Speak to me," she whispers above him, reaching and pleading that they begin this new revolution of physical communication between them.

He responds instantly, nuzzling his nose along hers as his fingers memorize her bare skin in the amber lamplight. "I am."

Her hands frame his face as he hugs her hips and their lips meet once again. Kissing Mulder isn't new. The feel of his warm, pillowy lips on hers isn't new as of the dawning of the Millennium, but the way her body reacts intensives with each soft sweep of their tongues. This time is no different.

Scully runs fingertips over the hard planes of his shoulders and back, circling the scar she claims as her signature upon a work of art. "I'm sorry I've made you wait."

He hums while a finger traces the vee of her sex, sending her hairs on end. "It wasn't just you. Timing is everything. I'm just hoping this isn't another very vivid dream." Two fingers dip through her wet folds and she gasps, shuttering as her belly burns for more.

"I promise this is real," she kisses his forehead, his nose, his upturned mouth. "Let me show you."

Feeling fluttery and shaky with anticipation, she tugs at his waistband, baring his body fully to match hers, and slowly climbs in his lap to straddle the epicenter of their lovemaking.

"You're beautiful so..." his thumb grazes the underside of her breast and her nipples pucker above the soft hairs on his chest, "Scully, I…"

"Shh, I know," her lips vibrate along his. Boldly grasping his engorged length with a trembling hand, he gasps, his beautiful darkened eyes fluttering. They've done this before, with others in the past, years ago. A lifetime ago. But never together, and never like this. This feels cosmic, ethereal, transcendental. Like true love. This is...

"...perfection," Mulder finishes her thought so effortlessly. She feels him touch her mind more often than not, and she uncharacteristically finds herself not at all questioning the underlying meaning of it.

Mulder groans open-mouthed as she finally lowers herself over the flared crown of him, slipping easily yet tentatively through the cleft of her as he stretches her walls and fills her soul in the most fulfilling way possible. Wholly and all consuming.

He's huge, and their joined bodies move awkwardly and slowly at first until they find their familiar rhythm of push and pull. The pleasure is overwhelming. Not because it's sex she's denied herself for years, but because it's making love with the man she cannot live without.

Her other half. Her soul's mate?

_Missy would be proud._

The softness and tenderness swirling within his green depths is something so powerful, otherworldly that it takes her breath away. But his affection is real, a tangible piece of vast emotion that lies between them. She can finally hold it within her palms and taste it on her lips, feel it within her soul as he enters her body so completely.

He is hers and she is his. Finally they are one as physically as they are emotionally.

His fingers tangle in her hair as he tastes every sensitive area below the swell of her cheeks. He drags his warm, swollen lips down the column of her throat, burning his kiss into her skin. She knows she will feel the searing brand of intimacy along the velvet of her for days.

Rocking along his sinewy hips, feeling his every curve drag exquisitely through her slickness, her hands wisp over each swell and dip of his taut muscles. She can feel his lifeblood pulse beneath her fingertips, like electricity singeing her nerve endings. His hot hands trace the violin curve of her waist, strumming each rib to the musical dance of their coupling, and her eyes mist over.

And time passes in moments…

She's twisting in the air below him as his thrusts grow insistent, hard and purpose driven. Their sweaty tendrils of red and brown—fire and earth—mingle in the sheets. It's an elemental culmination.

Their mouths devour one another with pent up passion and she can feel her toes numb in ecstasy. As her body ebbs into him from below, he lowers his lips to the softness of her breast and they moan to the symphony of their singing souls.

As the room sways tandemly with the silhouette of wind-whipped trees in the moonlit night, she slides one hand down the muscular curve of his back as his hips snap, hugging him impossibly close. "Mulder…"

She has so much she wants to tell him, but her throat thickens with unshed emotion. She wants to explain how her life has changed, morphed, for the better because he's in it. How, through it all, she's never really wanted to be anywhere but right here within his arms and his heart. There are just no words eloquent enough to ever define her love for him. So she loves him with her eyes, her hands, and her body, instead.

"So this is where the one choice in life took you," he rasps into her skin, "where all things lead?"

"All the things that matter most," she gasps against his swollen lips, undulating around the thick of him as she crests like a wave in a raging sea. She moans and cups his face as she comes swiftly, tenderly running her nails through his scalp. "You and me… this, together."

He steadily pumps into her as exhales of _Mulder's_ and _Scully's_ are like a cacophony of adoration bouncing off the walls and seeping into their skin, hydrating their hearts.

Her soul has been starved for this—for him for years, she realizes, and drinking him in now will barely quench her need. She needs more of him.

So much more. And the fact that she knows she will easily lose herself within her partner, equally thrills and frightens her.

"I…" he starts, panting as his hand clasps the nape of her neck and sucks her bottom lip through is teeth. Her pleasure ratchets to new heights as their hips clash and her inner thighs coat with a fresh rush of arousal. "...want to tell you again… so you know I meant it…"

She kisses him long and deep. "But I do know." She knows what he means, what he meant in the hallway, and at his hospital beside; and she believes. Even if it had confused her at the time, she'd wanted to believe it so badly. Still, when the truth is cold and unclear, like the oceanic water he'd been pulled from, she believes _in_ _him_.

And she feels the same for him.

_Agent Scully is already in love…_

"Oh God!" Her back arches stiffly along the Mulder-scented sheets and he inhales her throaty mewls through his mouth. Her orgasm pulls him deep into her and against her. The truth of that love radiates through her eyes and into his as they come apart together tangled in one another's arms. He quickly tumbles over the edge with her as his climax rockets through his body, jerking his spine, and she can barely hear his muffled cries for her through the pulsing blood flow in her ears.

The windstorm continues to rage against the window pane and she is utterly lost.

Later, they hover on the brink of sleep and the amber glowing room is engulfed in their shared scent. Scully sighs, her bare backside melting into the heat of Mulder's sweat-dappled body as it dovetails within hers. The flutter of nerves she'd experienced as she first stripped herself bare before him is gone, only to be replaced with unwelcome worry about what the sunrise will bring.

"Scully?" His voice is honeyed from behind and his arm curls tighter around her naked breasts.

"Hmm?"

"You're thinking," he breathes in her hair. "I can feel your mind filing and organizing."

She smiles. "I'm not sure this can be categorized or easily referenced."

There's a long pause that floats through the moist air before he speaks again. "Well it _was_ mind-blowing. Still is."

"But?" _Mulder please don't hurt me_, she pleads in silence.

She could say she loves him in return as he nibbles at the lobe of her ear and kisses her shoulder. But he already knows it, knows she has surrendered her heart to him long before this night. Yet the worry is there, poking the back of her mind. She might not be ready to confess something so huge just yet. They had always communicated best wordlessly so far anyway: a muted language of love.

"Sometimes nothing happens for a reason, it's true; but then I suppose sometimes they do—when the timing is right, it seems."

She kisses his fingers laced through hers and tucks it under her chin, praying he isn't regretting crossing the line and exposing his bruised heart along with her. "That's what I said to you… before."

"I listened, Scully. I wanted you to know that I heard you. That I _hear_ you."

"Mulder—"

"And when you get up and leave before the sun rises tonight, I just want you to know that I've heard you, Scully. But I won't regret a second spent loving you."

Tears she's been holding back pour down the swell of her cheeks and burn her lips. She spins to her back and locks her watery gaze onto his.

"Mulder, I _chose_ this, remember? We chose each other." She threads her fingers through his hair and cradles his jaw. "And if I leave before you wake, it's only to shower and change before our meeting in the morning. I don't regret this and won't regret a single second spent showing you exactly how much I want you."

He nods and presses soft lips to each eyelid, nose, and mouth, fervently kissing her worry away.

This is where their paths have led them, where their singular choices have shaped their lives and re-molded them into one entity—one being. This moment is _every_thing.

Here they lay, ready and willing to risk it all. To free dive through the unknown together, hoping they land on their feet in the end. And she knows, remembers she has solid evidence that he will hold her hand all the way down.

Her constant.

His touchstone.

Always.

She knows Mulder will wake alone to a still warm side of the bed that smells of her, of them, only sending a sliver of doubt across his skin until he finds her note. Then, he will see the truth: that this was no dream and that she really is in love with him…

_In all things, it's you and me. I choose you, Mulder._

_I choose us._

_Always._

_-Scully_

_**2014**_

She swipes hot tears from her cheeks and holds the note tightly to her chest. Her heart is shattering and they're both suffocating in the darkness of their own making. She loves him so much, achingly so, and she is doing this for them both.

For the _us_.

Regretfully, she pins the note to the fridge, time stamped and dated so he knows when she left. _He may not notice today,_ she thinks with a rising sob.

She remembers how she'd kissed him with longing and passion last night, and the welling tears in his eyes told her he knew this moment would come. He knows he can do nothing to stop it, yet that has not stifled her shame for doing so.

With one last look around the cluttered unremarkable house—their home—she takes her duffle and half her heart out the door and down the gravel driveway.

_I still choose you, my only constant and touchstone in life. I love you, Mulder, and I choose us. I always have._

_For better or worse, I always will._

_-Scully_

_**2018**_

The church is warm and comforting. The harmonious music lolls and relaxes her like it always has throughout her churchgoing years. It calms her restless soul when her perfect other, her perfect opposite cannot. The prayer candles flicker as her other half's green eyes gaze into hers. He's said his peace, re-devoted himself to her much like the day they did so in the eyes of God.

"...then what are you saying, Scully? Because I don't know if any god is listening, but I am listening. I'm standing right beside you, all ears. That's my choice."

Wordless communication is not enough. Telling this man she's so wholly in love with what she wants and needs with only her eyes and body just isn't enough anymore. Maybe it was _just enough _before, but it was never what they deserved. They deserve so much more, and she intends to _tell_ him that, too.

She glances around, seeing a few partitioners praying in the pews. A kiss is out of question, so she stretches up and quickly whispers in his ear what's laying heavily on her heart.

"I'm saying that I'm still in love with you, Mulder, and that I want forever. To spend my life with you, my constant and touchstone. I choose us. Just like I always have."

Pulling back and seeing the realization, the relief washing over him anew, she can't help but feel the tingle of anticipation to show him _exactly_ what that means with her body, too.

"That's not my four-year-old self talking. That's my leap of faith forward… and I'd like to do it together."

There is no note this time. No need to write her words of affirmation and reassurance down for him to see later. She will not leave, flee. No, she isn't going anywhere ever again.

He begins to smile softly, joy spreading across his matured, handsome face. "I've always wondered how this was gonna end."

For better or worse, this is where their endless forks in the road have taken them, where all things lead in the end: together.

Always.

—


End file.
